I occasionally have something like that too. Usually it happens when I have plans for the day. My mind begins to worry about them beforehand, it worries that I may be late and wakes me up at night and in the morning. I’d say it’s general anxiety, you need to practise the “I don’t care” approach more. It really helps with everything in life!

What you’re describing resembles a nocturnal panic attack, though you experience them early in the morning. As a person who has been diagnosed with depression and panic disorder, I assure you, this happens to many people. Your brain doesn’t stop working at night, so something triggers your panic. Can it be that you’ve been stressing about something lately?

Morning anxiety is very common! I always had it when I was at school, it made my life very uncomfortable. It stopped by itself, so I don’t know how to help you. The only idea that comes to mind is playing relaxing music, to distract yourself from whatever it is that's bothering you.

If you’re going through stressful times (you might not even be registering it at the time), your cortisol (stress hormone) levels may be high during the first hours of the morning. If it happens rarely, there’s nothing dreadful about it, we all battle with stress from time to time. If it persists for more than a week, you’d better find time and visit a neurologist or therapist to figure out what’s causing your constant distress.

I guess your anxiety is the result of something that happened in your subconscious while you were sleeping. We can’t control the subconscious, and we can’t exactly know what thought generated fear and body’s response. So you’d better focus not on the “why”, but on “how to manage it”. I’d probably try to get up and do something boring for a little while, to trick my mind into thinking it's normal routine, then try going to bed again.

Just an idea: have you tried doing a few exercises before bed? Exercising helps release tension and stress, so if you go to sleep with a relaxed mindset, perhaps it’ll also help with waking up?

The next time it happens, do not try convincing yourself everything’s all right. Tell yourself: “OK, here we go again. I’m awake now and I’m excited to see what it is you, brain, are so worried about”. Mean it too. You know nothing bad is going to happen to you, it’s just an irrational body’s reaction to something you don’t need in your life. So let it happen. Embrace it, do not fight it. Study it like a researcher. Lie there and observe what it is your mind is trying to be so agitated about. When your mind sees that you’re not trying to fight, you’re not worrying about why it’s happening, you’re just letting it pass… it will be much easier to calm down and maybe eventually fall asleep again.

And I thought I was the only one! My morning anxiety levels are unbearable on most week days. Thankfully, I'm working from home, so I can sleep in. The only thing that helps me is getting up and taking a warm shower. Then I sometimes decide that I've slept enough and go on with my day, but most of the times I can actually crawl back to bed and sleep for 1-2 more hours.

Try distracting your mind from whatever it was brooding upon at the time of waking up. Listening to a podcast or music, scrolling through your social feed – anything will do as long as it’s not too energetic, since you want to find your way back to sleep again once your mind calms down.

When my stress level increases, I experience the same issue with early morning wakeups. It will get better eventually, don’t worry. And don’t try to cope with it by staying in bed. There’s nothing worse than lying for hours without sleep and feeling miserable about it. If getting up helps you, just accept it as the best way to cope with it.